Linux kernel 6.6 brings the rumble! Discord releases an official Flatpak, NVIDIA ups their Wayland game, and Dead E. Ruxpin would like to tell you a bedtime story.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:05 Kernel 6.6 brings the rumble
06:58 NVIDIA learns how-to Wayland
12:16 Official Discord Flatpak
15:28 Pi powered Ruxpin
Linux Kernel 6.6
https://www.debugpoint.com/linux-kernel-6-6/
- On Sunday, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux released Linux Kernel 6.6 with some major new features.
- Enhanced performance for AMD processors with the integration of:
- The EEVDF scheduler, which replaces the CFS scheduler code.
- And AMD Dynamic Boost Control support for greater control of performance optimization on AMD processors.
- Temperature and EDAC support boost for the AMD Zen 5 Family 1Ah of processors.
- Also, AMD P-State features control via cpupower.
- There are lots of new gaming devices supported including:
- Logitech G Pro X Superlight gaming mouse
- GameSir T4 Kaleid controller
- SteelSeries Arctis 1 Xbox headset
- Rumble for Google Stadia controller
- And NVIDIA SHIELD controller battery reporting
- And there has been a huge problem lately with newer Lenovo laptop keyboards not working on Linux, and Linux Kernel 6.6 fixes a lot of them, including the Lenovo V14, V15, and the G14 AMN.
NVIDIA Wayland drivers
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/214100/en-us/
- We talked about the beta release on LGC a few weeks back.
- NVIDIA 545.29.02 makes it official.
- It adds the bits needed for the night light / night colour features in GNOME and KDE under Waland.
- VR should now kinda work with Wayland thanks to support for DRM leasing.
- VDAPU should now work with Xwayland.
- PRIME render offload has been added to Vulkan Wayland WSI.
- On top of that we get experimental support for framebuffer consoles.
- No more jumbo text when dropping to TTY.
- Also, we now have the ability to install the drivers without killing the display server.
- The driver appear to be stable but I have run into VSYNC issues with a few games.
- For those of us that like to install the latest Linux Nvidia .run file drivers from nvidia.com, it will be really convenient not to have to kill the currently running Nvidia display server just to do an update!
- Oh, and I have experienced the jumbo text in the framebuffer on my Wayland Fedora box running an Nvidia GPU. Glad that is fixed!
Discord Flatpak
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/10/discord-flatpak-now-verified-flathub
- Great news for the Discord Flatpak, it is now verified on Flathub, and no longer unofficial.
- There has been an unofficial version of Discord available on Flathub for many years, but now Discord is maintaining it!
- In fact, the unofficial Flatpak of Discord has been downloaded 3 million times!
- No doubt that it was on Discord’s radar.
- We have a lot of thanks to give to Cassidy James, a Flatpak Flathub developer advocate who has been reaching out to app creators to bring their software to Flathub.
- I am sure the .deb electron app will still be available, but it is nice to see the Discord company supporting Linux even more!
- Unrestricted File Access, and Rich Presence will be missing by default from the Flappak because sandbox but there are ways to work around that.
- Game Activity will not work and there is no workaround for this limitation.
- It can be run with Wayland but you will have to enable the correct flag.
Spoopy Pi
- Just in time for Halloween to be over!
- Dead E. Ruxpin is here to haunt your dreams and traumatise friends and family.
- The name may sound familiar and that’s not by accident since it’s the dark and gritty version of the OG Teddy Ruxpin.
- It was a bear that wiggled around when you shoved cassette tapes in it.
- This modern nightmare incarnate is powered by a ArduinoFFT + RP2040 combo.
- It’s running a FFT algorithm that does the audio snooping to control the animatronic bits.
- Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s 1962 “Monster Mash” and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” for the win!
- One of my first jobs in the 1980’s was working in the Children’s department at Mervyn’s department store, where we sold a lot of Teddy Ruxpins for Christmas.
- I was fascinated by how Teddy Ruxpin worked, and I remember telling customers who were wowed by his magic, how his movement was controlled by data on one of the tracks on the cassette.
